Epson V700 - Is it for me?

[igmolinav]

Hi Eric,

Thank you : )!!! Yes, I'll keep the film flat! It is very important!

I usually keep the Print File archival sheets with the negatives
under heavy books, so that negatives are as perfect as
possible flattened out.

Kind regards,

Ig : )!!!

 

[igmolinav]

I think it's a good decision, pending your analysis of working condition. That's a good price and the V700 is a very good scanner. I'd been using one for many years with no issues but recently upgraded to V850 when I got my tax refund. The 850 is faster to warm up and runs quietly and maybe renders the image a little better (but I haven't done any microscopic comparisons and don't feel the need to). I haven't tried the fluid mount yet. (Edit: just ordered one; it doesn't come as standard issue with the scanner.)

Hi,

Thank you for your message : )!!!

One more vote of confidence for the V700.
I'll do a scan test and see how a scan
comes out.

Thank you again, kind regards!

 

[igmolinav]

Definitely a worthwhile exercise. You should scan the same frames you've had scanned from the lab for comparison.

Since 4X5 is something you would scan, here's one from a colleague of mine whose father was a combat photographer in WW II. He inherited these from his dad and wanted to see the results from a V700. I simply put the film directly on the glass. He was pleased with the results from this and a few others I scanned for him. Full res 2400dpi result is posted.

Don Miller 2400-005 by Les DMess, on Flickr

Hi,

Thank you for your message : )!!!

Wow, the picture is very nice : )!!! Those 4x5" negatives must be
something very special to look at!

The Epson V700 scanner does a very nice job.

Thank you again, kind regards!

 

[Les Sarile]

Hi,

Thank you for your message : )!!!

Wow, the picture is very nice : )!!! Those 4x5" negatives must be
something very special to look at!

The Epson V700 scanner does a very nice job.

Thank you again, kind regards!

I scanned a few for him and they are amazingly clean and in great shape considering they were developed in the field. Obviously well made by a skilled photographer.
This one was only scanned at 2400dpi resulting in about 8600 X 10800 pixel file with a lot of compression. It may have benefitted from 3200 or maybe even 4800 dpi scan. I was surprised how good it looks simply scanning off the glass.

 

[250swb]

Hi,

Thank you for your message : )!!!

That seems amazing! I mean, I had heard of people scanning 35mm. film with a digital camera, but scanning medium and large format, that is something I had not heard of before. How do your scans, specially in the larger formats, come out?

Thank you again, kind regards!

Scanning anything other that 3:2 ratio (35mm film) on a full frame digital camera involves losing some of the megapixels because often you can't use all of the sensor, 6x6 for example you can get it into frame top and bottom but each side has unused sensor area. So 24mp is fine for scanning 35mm film, but as you change format you ideally need more megapixels because of this sensor crop factor. But a Nikon Z7 will vastly outperform a dedicated medium format scanner (especially an Epson flatbed), and the same for large format 4x5 but as you can imagine the larger you go the law of diminishing returns takes over. The largest negatives I scan are 4x5 and 6x12 and the quality is both superior to a dedicated scanner and achieved in 1/30th second and not twenty minutes. If there is one absolute sweet spot it is scanning 6x9 because of it's similar format ratio with a 3:2 sensor.

 

[Alan Edward Klein]

Scanning anything other that 3:2 ratio (35mm film) on a full frame digital camera involves losing some of the megapixels because often you can't use all of the sensor, 6x6 for example you can get it into frame top and bottom but each side has unused sensor area. So 24mp is fine for scanning 35mm film, but as you change format you ideally need more megapixels because of this sensor crop factor. But a Nikon Z7 will vastly outperform a dedicated medium format scanner (especially an Epson flatbed), and the same for large format 4x5 but as you can imagine the larger you go the law of diminishing returns takes over. The largest negatives I scan are 4x5 and 6x12 and the quality is both superior to a dedicated scanner and achieved in 1/30th second and not twenty minutes. If there is one absolute sweet spot it is scanning 6x9 because of it's similar format ratio with a 3:2 sensor.

The scan time for a 4x5 in my V850 at 2400bpi resolution is around 3 minutes without ICE and double that with it. Of course, you have set up time, but you also have that with a camera scanner. Claiming 1/30th of a second shutter speed with a camera doesn't include that.

Additionally, a V850 flatbed scanning 4x5 color, provides a 600mb, 48 color bit tiff file at 2400bpi scan resolution. BW files are 200MB 16 bit grayscale. How are camera scans better?

 

[Rolleiflexible]

The largest negatives I scan are 4x5 and 6x12 and the quality is both superior to a dedicated scanner

Can you elaborate? Is your remark based on numbers of pixels in the scan, or on some qualitative observation? Can you post samples so we can see what you have seen?

I haven’t bothered upgrading from my Epson 4990 because I scan only 120 and large format negatives, and as it is I am scanning down close to the grain structure of the film. It is difficult to imagine how a digital camera would give “superior” results but I would like to be proven wrong.

 

[blee1996]

Also it would be good to provide some data regarding dynamic range and color depth.

 

[Alan Edward Klein]

Definitely a worthwhile exercise. You should scan the same frames you've had scanned from the lab for comparison.

Since 4X5 is something you would scan, here's one from a colleague of mine whose father was a combat photographer in WW II. He inherited these from his dad and wanted to see the results from a V700. I simply put the film directly on the glass. He was pleased with the results from this and a few others I scanned for him. Full res 2400dpi result is posted.

Don Miller 2400-005 by Les DMess, on Flickr

That's a terrific picture and scan, Les. Why did you scan it on the glass rather than in a film holder although I can't imagine it could be much better.

 

[Les Sarile]

That's a terrific picture and scan, Les. Why did you scan it on the glass rather than in a film holder although I can't imagine it could be much better.

At that time my V700 didn't come with a 4X5 holder and just an 8X10 guide that you put on the glass to show you area to be scanned. I tried just laying the film directly on the glass and they all turned out acceptable to him so he purchased the V700. I recall he gave me mostly b&w which included shots while riding in bombing missions as well as some candids and street photos taken in Sicily on slide film. If you can imagine lugging around an aerial camera for those purposes!

 

[beemermark]

My 2 cents. When I had a darkroom (over 35 years) with a good Leica lens and a good negative the largest acceptable print size was 8x10 and maybe 11x14. if you increase the viewing distance (natural for larger prints) you can increase the print size - a 4x5 print at a normal reading distance needs to be sharp, a billboard looks just as sharp at a very low resolution. I've used the V700 for over a decade. With the setting at 2500 dpi and printing at 300 dpi you get a very sharp 11x14 - same as printing in the darkroom. If you print at 200 dpi (exceptable based on viewing distance) you can do 16x20 and get a decent negative. In short the V700 isn't a low resolution scanner. Unless you have the print pressed to your nose 2500 dpi scan of a 35mm negative is acceptable.

BTW I have 14x18 prints hanging on the wall made from my NIkon D200 (12 mp) that look great.

 

[250swb]

The scan time for a 4x5 in my V850 at 2400bpi resolution is around 3 minutes without ICE and double that with it. Of course, you have set up time, but you also have that with a camera scanner. Claiming 1/30th of a second shutter speed with a camera doesn't include that.

Additionally, a V850 flatbed scanning 4x5 color, provides a 600mb, 48 color bit tiff file at 2400bpi scan resolution. BW files are 200MB 16 bit grayscale. How are camera scans better?

Regarding scanning time I did say 'dedicated scanner' (i.e. a medium format film scanner), whereas the Epson is a do-it-all flatbed scanner. I know the V850 is faster than the V700 which the OP was referring to. I so rarely use colour 4x5 film and never scan in Greyscale which makes it hard to compare file sizes. But I guess you see 'more as better', but large file size does not equate to resolution just 'more', and with both flatbed and dedicated film scanners there is digital noise to fill in the gaps which you don't get with a camera.

 

[250swb]

Can you elaborate? Is your remark based on numbers of pixels in the scan, or on some qualitative observation? Can you post samples so we can see what you have seen?

I haven’t bothered upgrading from my Epson 4990 because I scan only 120 and large format negatives, and as it is I am scanning down close to the grain structure of the film. It is difficult to imagine how a digital camera would give “superior” results but I would like to be proven wrong.

I'm not sure what you mean by 'scanning down close to the grain structure' when using a flatbed, but the scanning sensor and lens is actually quite a long way away in the scheme of things. With a camera you do of course use a macro lens to fill the frame as much as possible. But my remarks are based on years of film scanning with Epson and dedicated film scanners (Minolta Multi Pro, Nikon 9000, Plutstek 120) and simply observing that camera scans not only replicate the grain of the film accurately, but they are also sharper like for like. I'm not a photographer that dabbles in creating test images to post on forums but you are free to browse my photos on Flickr (link below) where the details of each photo are in the tabs.

 

[_T_]

The fact of the matter is that the human eye is only capable of seeing so much detail, and whether you produce your scans with a camera or a consumer flatbed it’s not difficult to meet the threshold of detail information required to create good quality reproductions of 35mm frames of basically any size provided they are viewed from reasonable distances.

It comes down to a matter of cost and preference.

You can buy an all in one solution for about $200 and it will perform perfectly well in the v600, or you can spend a few thousand dollars on your dslr rig to get essentially the same results when printed. You can take it a step further and spend tens of thousands of dollars on a drum scanner but you’re still running into the exact same bottleneck at every turn, the fact that the human eye isn’t going to see all that extra detail you’re paying for.

So what do you want to accomplish with your scans? Are you going to pixel peep at clumps of dye clouds? Are you a tinkerer who wants to spend endless funds on your film scanning gas? Do you need to be able to turn a roll of film into digital files as quickly as possible, and do you have the skills to manually adjust each file to suit your needs? There’s a solution for every type under the sun and they’re all good enough.